Click here to confirm the real goal of health care “reform”.Click here to confirm entitlements WILL be the death of us.Click here to confirm where your “stimulus” money went.Click here to clarify those so-called “Tax Cuts”.Click here & examine who pays income taxes.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

For those who think government does a great job with health care -- take note.

Click here and here to understand why our health care costs are spiraling out of control.

Quoting The New York Times:

“Many people, just as they become eligible for Medicare, discover that the insurance rug has been pulled out from under them. Some doctors — often internists but also gastroenterologists, gynecologists, psychiatrists and other specialists — are no longer accepting Medicare, either because they have opted out of the insurance system or they are not accepting new patients with Medicare coverage. The doctors’ reasons: reimbursement rates are too low and paperwork too much of a hassle.”

Click the image & read the rest:Click here for a directly related post.Click here for more on Medicare.

Click here to examine the Dim double count accounting fraud.Click here and here to understand how government caused prices to soar.More government intervention will cause even higher prices & more rationing.Click here & see where Paul Ryan’s plan fits.

“Rajendra Pachauri, the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will defend his handling of a crisis that has shaken the world's faith in his organisation at a meeting of environmental leaders in Bali.

He will try to save his job by outlining plans to reform the way the IPCC works in the wake of the discovery of errors in its latest report.”

Click the image & read the rest:Pachauri has no academic background in ANY branch of science.So, who could be better qualified to lead the hucksters at the IPCC?Click here to further expose IPCC incompetence.Click here for some basic climate change science.

“Whether he ever says so or not, it's the Olympic gold medal that changes history's view of Miller. What happened in Turin is now an aberration rather than the defining moment. Now he'll always be seen by those outside the sport as one of Alpine skiing's greats who frittered away one Olympics, not a should-have-been who never fulfilled his promise.”

Here in Ski Town USA, those inside the sport never bought the idea that Turino defined Bode.

It’s GREAT to see Bode redeem his reputation! He is CLEARLY one of the best Alpine skiers EVER!

Click here to watch Miller’s gold medal performance in the Super Combined (one downhill race and one slalom race). It takes a VERY talented and well rounded skier to excel in both.

Bode has the opportunity to win two more medals in these games.

The Americans are doing really, REALLY well at the Olympics! Congratulations to the entire team!

“Spain's government says it is using emergency legislation to rein in its air traffic controllers, who earn up to euro900,000 ($1.2 million) a year in a country suffering a recession and nearly 20 percent unemployment.”

Note: For those who find the dowsing smear campaign credible…If you care to prove you are not hopelessly gullible, you can start by locating ONE direct quote from Dr. Mörner on dowsing. I looked. I did not find any. If you DO find any such quote, you can then explain how that discredits Dr. Mörner’s observations on sea-levels. Good luck with that one! Fools!

Of course, not even the factually challenged alarmists at the IPCC support the hysterical propaganda pushed by the British government in the first link. The IPCC -- relying upon recently invalidated computer models -- suggest sea-levels might rise by a mere 7” to 23” by 2100.

(See Table 3.1 on page 45 from this rather large and slow loading IPCC PDF file.)

“More trouble looms for the IPCC. The body may need to revise statements made in its Fourth Assessment Report on hurricanes and global warming. A statistical analysis of the raw data shows that the claims that global hurricane activity has increased cannot be supported.”

Friday, February 19, 2010

“As California stumbles through its continuing budget crisis, 60% of likely voters in the state now believe it would be better if most incumbents in the state legislature were defeated in this November’s elections.”

Click the image & read the rest:

According to Wikipedia, “[t]he California State Legislature currently has a Democratic majority, with the Senate consisting of 25 Democrats and 15 Republicans; and the Assembly having 49 Democrats, 29 Republicans”.

Given that Massachusetts just elected a Republican to replace Teddy Kennedy, how many of those Dims are likely to get the boot in Cali?

“YVO de Boer, the top UN climate change official, announced last night that he was resigning after a tumultuous four years in the job, marked by the failure to convince governments to agree on a post-Kyoto deal and revelations of a series of blunders in the UN's 2007 report on climate change.”

Thursday, February 18, 2010

“In a November appearance with conservative policy advocate David Horowitz, [Democratic strategist Pat] Caddell called the SEIU ‘thugs’ and said environmentalists were out to ‘deconstruct capitalism.’”

“Sixty-one percent (61%) of Americans say it is better for the economy for the government to stay out of the housing market.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Too bad the pathetic morons who purport to run our local city government are not as wise as the people they purport to represent.

Federal housing entitlement programs (the Satan which spawned all this local housing entitlement bullshit) were CLEARLY the cause of the recent global meltdown. Did the Socialist housing idiots learn from their mistakes? HELL NO! The morons (all around the nation) are setting us up for yet another disaster!

“In August 2007, I submitted two Freedom of Information Act requests to NASA and its Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), headed by long-time Gore advisor James Hansen and his right-hand man Gavin Schmidt (and RealClimate.org co-founder)…

NASA stonewalled my request for more than two years, until Climategate prompted me to offer notice of intent to sue if NASA did not comply immediately.

On New Year’s Eve, NASA finally provided the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) with the documents I requested in August 2007.

The emails show the hypocrisy, dishonesty, and suspect data management and integrity of NASA, wildly spinning in defense of their enterprise.”

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

“Virginia's attorney general Ken Cuccinelli filed a petition yesterday to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's December 7 ruling that it would regulate greenhouse gases as it would air pollutants under the Clean Air Act--a back door attempt to accomplish what Congress can't through cap and trade.”

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

“President Obama, speaking to an enthusiastic audience of union officials in Lanham, Md., on Tuesday, underscored his embrace of nuclear power as a clean energy source, announcing that the Energy Department had approved financial help for the construction of two nuclear reactors in Georgia.”

Click the image & read the rest:

I support expanding nuclear power, but not through crony capitalism (obviously targeted at throwing OUR money at Obama’s labor unions)!

As for the escalating costs of building a new plant…Scratch the surface of THAT topic and you are guaranteed to find a fat pack of trial lawyers just under the surface (feeding tons of money back into the Dims who fund them).

“The [computer model] simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends [in global temperatures] for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.”

That’s it! Game OVER! The AGW Hysteria cult is officially DEAD and BURIED!

According to the very core of the alarmist cabal, the IPCC computer models -- the SOLE SOURCE of all the hysterical predictions of climate catastrophe -- have been invalidated! Additionally, the alarmists at NOAA admit there has been no global warming since 1998:

“The trend in the ENSO-related component for 1999–2008 is +0.08±0.07°C decade, fully accounting for the overall observed trend. The trend after removing ENSO (the "ENSO-adjusted" trend) is 0.00°±0.05°C decade.”

Capitalism is the only fountain of human progress.Crony Capitalism is akin to sodomy.Where else have we been seriously sodomized?Start with the housing debacle & the ethanol debacle.But, both will pale next the to the “Green Jobs” assault.

Miriam E. Mendelson, writing at American Thinker, compares her impressions of the movie Avatar to her own experiences in the theater of war. I wish I could say her observations were atypical of our so-called “entertainment” industry -- which I largely boycott. I have no interest in seeing Avatar.

Quoting Miriam E. Mendelson:

“The ‘military’ characters in the movie were portrayed as uncaring and unfazed by the suffering of others -- willing to take lives with nary a second thought. They were portrayed as deserving to die because of how little they cared for the lives of others. It wasn't just some of the military that were portrayed this way -- it was all of them. Only the rogue protagonist was different….

The soldiers I had gotten to know so well -- who was going to tell their stories?”

[And then, a few stories get told…]

“The purpose of this piece is not to make a statement about war. Leave that for the politicians. Rather, it is to testify to the character of soldiers -- men and women of character, compassion, and honor. There are enough stories like the above to fill a book (being written), and many more yet untold. Yes, there are bad soldiers, just as there are bad doctors, bad cops, etc. Yet the vast majority risk and sacrifice their lives to protect not just us, but innocent people of other nations as well. When it comes to the military, let's not let one (otherwise entertaining) movie be the only story that gets told.”

“Roughly 15,000 American, Afghan and NATO forces began an assault late Friday on the Taliban in the central Helmand town of Marjah in what senior military commanders are calling the largest operation since the start of the Afghanistan war…

‘This may be the largest IED threat and largest minefield that NATO has ever faced,’ said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commander of Marines in southern Afghanistan.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Regarding the IED and mine threat…This new bad boy will help deal with that:

Thursday, February 11, 2010

“under current law, federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid measured as a share of GDP will rise from 4 percent today to 12 percent in 2050 and 19 percent in 2082—which, as a share of the economy, is roughly equivalent to the total amount that the federal government spends today…

Federal spending on programs other than Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—including national defense and a wide variety of domestic programs—is likely to contribute far less, if anything, to the upward trend in federal outlays as a share of GDP.”

"The enormous sums committed to mandatory federal programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid dwarf all other aspects of the budget. Left unchecked for a decade or two, they will consume a larger share of the nation's GDP than all our federal programs today combined. Coupled with increasing interest payments on the government's rising debt, they will either force up taxes or produce dangerous deficits."

From the Congressional Budget OfficeClick the image to learn more:

From Heritage.orgClick the image to learn more:

The Cure(Hint: Higher taxes will NOT solve the problem.)

Higher income taxes will NOT produce higher revenues.Click the image to learn more:

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

“As Europe edges toward emergency guarantees to stem market panic over one of the most profligate members of the euro bloc, the country that the region turns to for leadership, Germany, is suffering from growing doubts about the European experiment it long championed.

Reluctant German leaders now find themselves forced to help Greece remain solvent, or risk watching markets attack one weak member after the next, from Portugal to Spain to Italy, threatening the stability of the euro, the European currency Germany fought so hard to create…

Berlin has been mostly silent on the matter. That is partly to put pressure on Greece, as civil servants struck there Wednesday to oppose cutbacks that the government has promised in order to rein in its enormous budget deficit.

But a bailout will be politically awkward for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government. It is precisely the financial millstone that opponents warned about when Germany gave up its treasured mark, a move that a majority of people here, in contrast to their political leaders, opposed at the time.”

Click the image & read the rest:

Yep, once again the German people were smarter than their tyrannical “leaders”. Now, Germans get to witness Marxist wealth redistribution at it’s “finest”. Basically, every German taxpayer will get to subsidize the overpaid, under-worked Greek incompetents whose exorbitant salaries are provided by the monopolistic, corrupt Greek political thugs.

Watch carefully folks, because you will witness a tame version of what’s in store for us not too far down the road. Our Federal government will step in to rescue California and various other “Progressive” disasters. But, who will rescue our Federal government from its soaring deficits?

Answer - NOBODY! And, that is precisely why our circumstance will be far, far, FAR worse than the collapse of the EU. The sooner we get the current crop of tyrants OUT of Washington, the more likely we’ll be to avoid our own total collapse. But, even if we avoid a total collapse, lots of our people are going to have to suck up the fact that their EXISTING entitlement fantasies will have to die.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

“The past chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has joined the growing list of IPCC critics. According to the Sunday Telegraph, Rajendra Pachauri, the disgraced current IPCC chair, now faces criticism from his immediate predecessor, Robert Watson…

Watson’s new-found scepticism of the science being produced by the IPCC represents an ironic reversal. In 2002, he remarked that ‘The only person who doesn't believe the science is President Bush.’”

Click the image & read the rest:My dear Watson - Welcome to the reality based community!Click here to further expose IPCC incompetence.Click here for some basic climate change science.

To understand just how effective so-called “Progressive” propaganda has been, look no further than this “controversial” SuperBowl ad:

Listen! If the so-called “Progressives” had not been so damn effective in their propaganda campaign, the entire country would be screaming from the rooftops every single day about the mass murder of about 50 million of the very most innocent and the very most defenseless among us.

Far too many Americans defend this senseless slaughter as if it were representative of the very most fundamental of human rights.

Mass murder on an utterly unprecedented scale as a human rights issue? Don’t even TRY to tell me these people have not been brainwashed! It makes me SICK to my stomach!

“It was the scientific paper that served as a central pillar for the idea that vaccination could increase children's risk of developing autism.

Now, with a formal retraction from the Lancet, the medical journal which in 1998 published this piece of research by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, most researchers will view the study as if it had never been published in the first place.”

I have, until now, been an agnostic regarding the question of whether Obama meets the constitutional “natural born citizen” requirement to be President. I have raised questions and expressed doubts. But, I have never asserted any firm position. Until today, I had not seen any reasonably convincing evidence one way or the other.

Granted, this electronic image could be a forgery. But, if there is any evidence to that effect, I am unaware of it. Granted, the birth could have taken place outside the country and the parents could have announced it in a Hawaiian newspaper. But, that seems far fetched. So I will -- for now -- assume the evidence is credible and that Obama does, regrettably, meet the constitutional requirements to serve as President.

If Obama is a natural born citizen, he could have easily put an end to the controversy by presenting a certified copy of his birth certificate to a credible, neutral third party. I have often wondered out loud why Obama never did so. But, of late, I have reached the same conclusion expressed by this blogger:

“If I were President Obama and there were no birther movement, I would invent one. It destroys the credibility of anyone who talks about it. To moderates and liberals, the birther movement is the right-wing equivalent of those moonbats who were calling the 2000 election stolen, years after the election was over-- its a bit crazy.”

Now another headline grabbing IPCC scare story is melting away. A report in Sunday’s London Times highlights new humiliations for the IPCC.

‘The most important is a claim that global warming could cut rain-fed north African crop production by up to 50% by 2020, a remarkably short time for such a dramatic change. The claim has been quoted in speeches by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, and by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.’

There is however one teensy-weensy little problem. As Professor Chris Field, the lead author of the IPCC’s climate impact team has now told reporters that he can find ‘no evidence’ to support the claim in the IPCC’s 2007 report.”

Click the image & read the rest:Click here to further expose IPCC incompetence.Click here for some basic climate change science.

It seems that the climate research community has betrayed that mighty goal in science…

The damage has been done. The public trust in climate science has been eroded…

So what comes next? Let us stop making unjustified claims and exaggerated projections about the future even if the editors of some eminent journals are just waiting to publish them. Let us admit that our understanding of the climate is less perfect than we have tried to make the public believe. Let us drastically modify or temporarily discontinue the IPCC. Let us get back to work.

Let us encourage students to think their own thoughts instead of forcing them to parrot the IPCC conclusions.”

Click the image & read the rest:What? A call for a return to scientific integrity?What a NOVEL and timely idea!Well said, Dr. Chylek!

“‘The global warming movement as we have known it is dead,’ the brilliant analyst Walter Russell Mead says in his blog on The American Interest. It was done in by a combination of bad science and bad politics…

By exaggerating the certainties, papering over the gaps, demonizing the skeptics and peddling tales of imminent catastrophe, they've discredited the entire climate-change movement. The political damage will be severe. As Mr. Mead succinctly puts it: ‘Skeptics up, Obama down, cap-and-trade dead.’ That also goes for Canada, whose climate policies are inevitably tied to those of the United States.”

Click the image & examine the evidence:Click here to further expose IPCC incompetence.Click here for some basic climate change science.

“The Netherlands has asked the UN climate change panel to explain an inaccurate claim in a landmark 2007 report that more than half the country was below sea level, the Dutch government said Friday.

According to the Dutch authorities, only 26 percent of the country is below sea level, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be asked to account for its figures, environment ministry spokesman Trimo Vallaart told AFP.”

Click the image & read the rest:Click here to further expose IPCC incompetence.Click here for some basic climate change science.

Friday, February 5, 2010

“The Indian government has established its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because [like everybody else] it ‘cannot rely’ on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group headed by its own leading scientist Dr R.K Pachauri…

The move is a significant snub to both the IPCC and Dr Pachauri as he battles to defend his reputation following the revelation that his most recent climate change report included false claims that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. Scientists believe it could take more than 300 years for the glaciers to disappear.”

Click the image & read the rest:Click here for more on the IPCC.Click here for some basic climate change science.

“The NBER has not yet determined the end of the recession that began in December 2007. The date 2009-07-01 has been substituted in graphs as an estimate. This estimate is based on a statistical model for dating business cycle turning points developed by Marcelle Chauvet and Jeremy Piger (A Comparison of the Real-Time Performance of Business Cycle Dating Methods, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 2008, 26, 42-49). For more information, seehttp://www.uoregon.edu/~jpiger/us_recession_probs.htm

“It is difficult to imagine a more bizarre academic dispute. Where exactly are 42 weather monitoring stations in remote parts of rural China?

But the argument over the weather stations, and how it affects an important set of data on global warming, has led to accusations of scientific fraud and may yet result in a significant revision of a scientific paper that is still cited by the UN's top climate science body.

It also further calls into question the integrity of the scientist at the centre of the scandal over hacked climate emails, the director of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), Dr Phil Jones. The emails suggest that he helped to cover up flaws in temperature data from China that underpinned his research on the strength of recent global warming.”

“The IPCC made a prominent claim in its 2007 report, again citing the WWF [World Wildlife Fund] as its authority, that climate change could endanger ‘up to 40 per cent’ of the Amazon rainforest – as iconic to warmists as those Himalayan glaciers and polar bears. This WWF report, it turned out, was co-authored by Andy Rowell, an anti-smoking and food safety campaigner who has worked for WWF and Greenpeace, and contributed pieces to Britain's two most committed environmentalist newspapers. Rowell and his co-author claimed their findings were based on an article in Nature. But the focus of that piece, it emerges, was not global warming at all but the effects of logging…

A Canadian analyst has identified more than 20 passages in the IPCC's report which cite similarly non-peer-reviewed WWF [World Wildlife Fund] or Greenpeace reports as their authority, and other researchers have been uncovering a host of similarly dubious claims and attributions all through the report. These range from groundless allegations about the increased frequency of ‘extreme weather events’ such as hurricanes, droughts and heatwaves, to a headline claim that global warming would put billions of people at the mercy of water shortages – when the study cited as its authority indicated exactly the opposite, that rising temperatures could increase the supply of water.”